Seven Years in a Young Man’s Life: Collaborative Care in Rural Vermont

The collaboration between a psychologist and a physician, assisted by an attentive nurse in the student’s school, proved invaluable in this particular instance. The efforts of all contributed to our success. In this respect our practice is atypical, since most primary care practices are not fortunate to be set up to enable and encourage such a cooperative and long-term collaboration as we have. We believe that our center’s organization is a model for collaborative practice which others might profit from duplicating in their practice environments.

The consequences of not successfully addressing these disorders in children and youth are also all too familiar, with family disruption, educational failure, drug and alcohol abuse, unintended pregnancy, legal entanglements, unemployment, chronic disability, incarceration, and suicide known risks to these individuals throughout their lives. The alternatives to receiving good care often involve great human costs, heartbreak, and societal expense. These disorders arise in the lives of some individuals in all of our communities and in all of our practices every month or week, if not each day. We cannot afford to leave these disorders undetected or their victims untreated.